Behold this day, for it is yours to make.
—Black Elk

And given that the average human
on the globe has approximately
26,280 days (or 72 years),

you don’t have time to waste.
I often think of my late husband
who didn’t even achieve 18,000

days, though he’d hoped for more.
Which is one reason I cherish
every birthday and count even

the half birthdays. “Your years
are your wealth, darlin’, ” my
grandmother used to say, who

clocked more than 30,000 days
on the planet. Her daughter,
my mother, beat that number

by a whopping 4,000 or so days,
which means, my sister and I
figure, that she really got her

money’s worth out of that lifetime.
And she hoped she’d get to start
over, arrive anew and try again.

The point is: Make hay with
each day. It’s yours to make.
Add something to the world,

preferably along the lines of
kindness. You’re here to live
and grow in love, after all.

And along the way enjoy yourself,
should you have the privilege
of a long life. Or any life, really.

We don’t get to bop around in
bodies all that often, and if
reincarnation is really a thing,

and we might show up again
as something more than
a dung beetle, cherish that

lucky lifetime, too. In the
meantime, while you’re here,
behold this day. Hold it gently,

and hold others that way, too.
Clasp it to you. Use it well
like the precious thing it is.